Fly-in, fly-out jobs strain families and work loyalty

Clay Lucas

Published: January 5 2013 - 3:00AM

AUSTRALIA'S growing army of fly-in, fly-out workers - which now numbers around 200,000 people in the mining sector - suffer from severe stress on their family relationships, and many believe their companies don't care about them, new research has found.

Mining is the main employer of fly-in, fly-out workers in remote locations around the nation, many of whom work up to four weeks away from home, for pay rates usually at least double those in the big cities.

But while the pay is better, there is high turnover - one in three mine workers don't last a year in the job, a parliamentary inquiry was told last year - and a growing body of evidence on the social impacts.

Libby Brook is a researcher at Murdoch University's school of psychology and is looking at the effects of fly-in work on families. ''Fly-in fly-out workers don't feel very much emotional attachment to their employers,'' she said, citing results from research released before Christmas.

A concurrent study on partner satisfaction found that while workers were generally happy being away for extended periods of work, their spouses - particularly those with children aged between six and 12 - suffered.

''Partners in couples with no children [also] had high levels of dissatisfaction, higher overall in fact than those with children,'' Ms Brook said. ''This may be because they are lonelier when their partners are away.''

A federal parliamentary inquiry will early this year release its report on fly-in, fly-out workforces. Among those to make submissions was the Australian Mines and Metals Association. The chief executive, Steve Knott, said 80 per cent of mining workers were employed on a fly-in, fly-out basis, and the workforce of about 200,000 was only going to get bigger.

There was demand for another 100,000 workers, Mr Knott said, pointing to huge skills shortages, particularly for engineers and geologists prepared to fly into remote areas. He said the big mining firms were ''very much alive'' to the issues that made fly-in, fly-out work potentially tough on workers and their families.

''The jobs are not in Chapel Street in Melbourne, or Martin Place in Sydney. They are in the Pilbara, or offshore in gas [fields],'' where working conditions were often tough, he said.

Federal Department of Infrastructure and Transport figures given to Parliament last year show flights from Brisbane to mining towns jumped 582 per cent from 2001 to 2011, and from Perth grew by 713 per cent.

Nicole Ashby runs a website supporting families of fly-in, fly-out workers. She and her husband have three small children and live in Perth. He has spent more than four years working at an oil and gas field near Karratha in Western Australia's Pilbara region, working four weeks on, then four weeks off.

''We got into it purely for the financial gain,'' Ms Ashby said. ''He was working as a truck driver in the city, and we were going backwards with our mortgage and two young boys.''

When the couple had a third child, the pressure on Ms Ashby as a solo mum for 28 days at a time was immense. ''I don't have a lot of extended family here [in Perth], so I found it very challenging.''

Ms Ashby said companies employing large fly-in workforces were slowly recognising they needed to do more to support workers and their families.

The initial adjustment period, when workers returned home after up to 35 straight days' work, was particularly hard, she said.

''When you are on a rig it's like a foreign environment where the focus is on safety - so to come back to a non-fly-in, fly-out environment, you have to make a physical and psychological shift,'' she said.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/national/flyin-flyout-jobs-strain-families-and-work-loyalty-20130104-2c8wk.html